The True Lives of Cells – by Sharon Suzuki-Martinez

I plan to scoop up my old cells and reassemble my seven old selves. Throw them a big pity party as a distraction. Then leap naked and shameless into my latest incarnation.*People and things are like cells—replaced, time and again.

Like a goldfish named Sonny replaced by an identical goldfish named Cher in the fishbowl of our youth. Like the queue of father figures stepping into our angry fathers’ shoes.*Humans are glorified cells of the Earth.

But the Earth doesn’t need us the way it needs bees. According to a recent survey, three out of four of my friends say: the Earth needs us like geese need molten lava.*Now imagine each of your cells is an individual:

complete with a personality, pet peeves, and secret pain. Imagine bacteria cells roaming your body’s inner prairie like the tiniest bison.*The cells dally and gossip their lives away, but a few quiet cells know their time is a wisp of match-light. They marvel at the magnificent vistas within your body: their whole world. They wonder if other perfect bodies with intelligent life could exist elsewhere, in the mystery of outer space.

Sharon Suzuki-Martinez is the author of The Way of All Flux (New Rivers Press, 2012), and winner of the New Rivers Press MVP Poetry Prize. She is also the Editor of a music and poetry blog,The Poet’s Playlist.